The Art of Bonding
by magickal1
Summary: When Ginny and her daughter try to make a good birthday breakfast for Harry, they run into some complications, including setting the house on fire and the attack of Crisco Man.


**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter is totally mine! I got it as an Easter present! The Energizer bunny came up to my house, looking all sexy in his/her pink fur and bass drum, and dropped it off for me in a basket!

Psych! I'm sure you all believed that, though, since it is _so_ believable. Except, yanno, not.

**A/N**: Happy Easter! This is a response to the A Day in the Kitchen (Dialogue) challenge that was originally posted on (www) (dot) (fictionalley) (dot) (org).

**A/N2: **If Ginny seems OOC, I have a perfectly good reason. She is pregnant. People do and say weird things when they're pregnant—trust me on this one. I had to get a really big family somehow…and I'm talking cousins. Lots of cousins, all of which are younger than me, and whose parents lived really close by when the mother was pregnant, and visited a lot, and….

Enough said. Read and enjoy!

* * *

**The Art of Bonding**

"Lily!" Ginny yelled. "Get down here this instant!"

Lillian Elizabeth Potter groaned, clamping her pillow firmly over her ears. "I don't wanna!"

"Lils," Ginny said in a warning voice, "it's your father's birthday, and he had night shift. If we hurry, we can make him a good breakfast before he gets home at ten."

Lily snuck a peek at her alarm clock, then bolted up. Peeking out her curtains, she saw that it was still dark out. "Mum! It's not even six yet!"

"I don't care. Come down before I have to drag you out." Lily knew from past experience that that wasn't the greatest feeling in the world, so she lumbered down the stairs, muttering under her breath all the time.

Ginny was sitting on the kitchen counter, her legs rested on the back of the chair in front of her and a cookbook propped up on her lap. Lily snatched the book away before Ginny could protest.

Lily's eyebrows shot up, and she grinned, her jade eyes dancing. "How to Put the Magic Back On Your Table…kinky."

Ginny flushed. "Just because you're incredibly dirty minded doesn't mean we all are."

Lily's eyes widened. "Oh, Merlin, Mum—I hadn't even thought of that—"

"Thought of what? I want to make sure we're on the same page here."

"Ugh, you're disgusting."

"And you're sixteen…I would imagine you've been there, done that…"

Lily flipped her long red hair over her shoulder, hiding her rapidly reddening face. "Muuumm!" she whined. "Shane and I aren't even serious yet! We've just started this whole going out thing. I thought mothers were wholly against that kind of stuff. Are you en_couraging _me?"

"Encouraging you to do what?"

Lily was starting to get irritated, the blush receding from her cheeks. "I thought we were thinking about the same thing."

"And what is that?"

"Sex," Lily said with a shrug.

Ginny choked. "Oh, no, sweetie—I wasn't—I was thinking of something else.

"Do I want to know what that is?"

Ginny grimaced. "No, probably not."

Lily sighed dramatically, flopping herself down into a chair. "I guess I'm too short for enlightenment."

"Not that again," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "You aren't _that _short—"

"I'm barely five feet, Mum."

"I didn't finish growing until I was over twenty-two," Ginny said impatiently. "Rather uncommon, you must get it from me. Anyway, you don't have to drag your insecurities into every conversation."

Lily grumbled. "Fine." She paused. "What are you planning to make, anyway?"

Ginny flipped to the back of the cookbook, then held it up for all (in this case, Lily) to see. "Ta-da!"

Lily peered at the page. "Scones?" she said skeptically.

"Yes scones. I will conquer the world with my scones. WATCH OUT, WORLD!" she yelled.

Lily clapped her hand over her mother's mouth. "Mum! Shh! You're going to wake the neighbors!"

"Remember the last time that happened?" Ginny said dreamily, staring off into space. "Frank came outside to yell at me for waking Frank Jr."

"You realize that was a bad thing, right Mum? Lily asked pointedly. Ginny ignored her.

"And you brought up your height, as always, you self-pitier. What was it that time?"

"Actually, I didn't bring up my height. Frank called me shorty," Lily said indignantly, making it clear that the incident of two years ago still offended her greatly.

Ginny was highly amused. "And what did you say back?" she asked.

"Well, remember his potbelly, before he started working out at the gym?" Lily asked.

"Of course," Ginny replied. "Who can't remember the famous Larkin family potbelly?"

"Well," Lily said, "I said, 'I might me short, but the good part is, I'm skinny with all my vitamins and minerals. UNLKE YOU! And I can grow, but you're going to be a fatty forever. You belong at the top of the food pyramid with Crisco! Crisco and Larkin, a match made in heaven!'"

"Ooh. Harsh," Ginny said, sympathetic to Frank's plight. "Wait a sec. Isn't that the same day he started going to the gym in the first place?"

"Yep," Lily said proudly. "I saved a man from being doomed to a life with fats, oils, and sugars, cooped up in that tiny little triangle forever."

Ginny nodded thoughtfully, glancing at the clock. "Er—wasn't there a reason we're up at half past six in the morning, sitting in the kitchen, and talking about our previously fat next door neighbors and shortening?"

"I don't think so…" Lily said.

Ginny's eyes lit up. "Right! Scones!"

"I could practically see the light bulb go off…" Lily muttered.

Ginny's head snapped up suspiciously. "What was that?" she said sharply.

"N-nothing?" Lily stuttered nervously. Pregnant women could be very hormonally imbalanced, which involved random temper tantrums and crying jags, and Lily really wasn't in the mood just then.

Ginny knew that whenever her daughter said a statement as a question she was lying, but the milkman knocked on the door at that moment, so she let it go.

"Go get the milk. We need it for the scones."

Lily arched an eyebrow elegantly, but went anyway. As she opened the door, Frank the Neighbor stepped out of his house, clad solely in boxer briefs.

She shrieked and fell backwards into the three-inch carpet in the hallway with a big 'oomph.' Her Hutt of a mother (**please excuse the SW reference. XD**) waddled forward, concerned.

"Are you all right, sweets?" she asked.

"No!" Lily exclaimed shrilly. "It's Frank! He's wearing disturbingly tight boxer briefs…"

"And?" Ginny prompted.

"And nothing!" Lily shrieked. Ginny stuck her head out the door curiously, then let out a little squeak, grabbing the milk bottles and ducking back inside, where it was safe.

"Our next door neighbor isn't wearing a shirt. My virgin eyes!" Ginny said breathlessly.

"Um, Mum, considering you're pregnant, and you have a child—namely, me—you're not a virgin. Unless you're a product of some freak accident, and the rules of Mother Nature don't apply to you."

They went back to the kitchen. Ginny was attempting to follow the instructions for preparing the skillet. She couldn't even turn the stove on. And she had decided to do things the Muggle way, as Lily was still underage, so no wand waving and saying "_Incendio!_"

"I should be bonding with Dad," Lily remarked. "He can cook, unlike you."

"Whatever," Ginny said, waving her off. Her thoughts were obviously running down a completely different path. "But, wow, Crisco _totally_ isn't in his league anymore, did you see that six-pack?"

"MUM! I can think of two hundred and fifty-seven things I'd rather be doing right now, and one of them is making scones. Notice I did _not _mention discussing my forty-year-old neighbor, and his hot bod. Which isn't hot, by the way."

"Don't forget how sexy he is," Ginny said distractedly. "Is that on the list?"

"You—are—married, you perv," Lily said through gritted teeth.

Ginny laughed cheekily. "Just trying to bother you." She began walking down the hall. "And speaking of Mother Nature, she seems to be calling."

"You go to the bathroom every five minutes, Mum."

"Well, if you had an immature life form inside your womb, pressing down on your bladder, you would have to use the loo a bit more often, too."

"Your arguments would be more convincing if they didn't rhyme," Lily called after her. Ginny grunted.

"Stupid overactive bladder," Lily mumbled. "Stupid hormones. Stupid Mother Nature. Stupid neighbor. Stupid scones." She sighed. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

She stomped off to the challenged stove, attempting once again to set it alight.

* * *

"Think fast!" Ginny said brightly once she marched into the kitchen after her potty break. She threw a wad of cloth at Lily, and grabbed one for herself out of a drawer. 

"Oh, Mum," Lily sighed. "You honestly aren't going to make me wear an apron, are you?"

"Oh, Lily," Ginny mimicked. "I honestly am going to make you wear an apron, I am."

"Be that way, annoying prat," Lily muttered, haphazardly throwing the apron on herself.

"What was that?" Ginny asked, fixing on her own apron, which was suspiciously free of stains, unlike Lily's. "Did I hear you call me an annoying prat?"

"No, you must have been imagining it," Lily said innocently, getting some flour out of the pantry and eggs out of the refrigerator as Ginny pulled out a big bowl.

"I never imagine things, hon," Ginny replied absently, picking a wooden spoon out of a drawer. She couldn't have realized she was completely setting herself up.

"Except when you're drunk," Lily teased. Ginny banged her head against the cabinet while cracking an egg, resulting in many shells in the bowl. Lily sighed and went over to her to help her mother pick them out.

"That was nothing, Lils. Seriously."

Lily grinned. "Besides the fact that you imagined that you were hugging me, when you were really hugging a complete _stranger_."

"Well, he wasn't a _complete _stranger," Ginny said in her defense. "I think I saw him in Madame Malkin's before."

"…and he was a complete stranger," Lily repeated.

Ginny was still talking. "Anyway, I'm never drunk. Just very, _very _tipsy."

"As a result of your drunkenness," Lily pointed out.

"Is that even a word?" Ginny asked, giving up completely on the eggshell excavation and just getting a new egg entirely.

"What?"

"Drunkenness."

"Erm…" Lily thought. "I think so…."

"Well, it accounts for your actions when you're around Shane," Ginny teased. Lily ignored this.

"'Oh, Shane,'" Ginny continued, mocking her daughter, even though it was against her better judgment. "'Kiss me, Shane! Kiss me!'" Ginny then proceeded to make obnoxious smacking noises with her lips. Lily glared at her.

"Don't make me hit you with a saucepan," Lily said threateningly, hefting said saucepan in her hands, as she had just gotten in out of a cabinet.

"'Oh, no, Shane! She's going to hit me with a saucepan, Shane!'" Ginny began backing away from the furious Lily. "'Save me, Shane! And then we can snog after we have banished her to her corner!'" Ginny joint snorted and chuckled, which wasn't a pretty sound. "How romantic."

Lily was just about to smack her target in the middle of the forehead when an eerie light began dancing on the far wall. She spun around, and her eyes widened to the size of Galleons.

"Um, Mum…" she said fearfully to Ginny, who was still facing the other direction, acting in a very disturbing manner. "I think we have a problem.

Ginny laughed heartily. "'We have a problem, Shane,'" she said, spinning around slowly. "'Come save us, Shane, we need you'—holy shit!'" She had finally made a full revolution. She stared at the stove. The burner had indeed lit, just not fully, and the cookbook Ginny had dropped on it was blazing.

"There go the scones," she said mournfully. Lily began dancing around.

"That isn't the immediate problem," she shrieked. "Where's your wand! You know I can't do any magic."

Ginny giggled nervously. "Erm—well, since I knew that I would use my wand for cooking if I had access to it, I asked Harry to hide it last night."

Lily gaped at her. "YOU _WHAT_!"

"I have no idea where it is," Ginny added unhelpfully.

"Dammit!" Lily swore, adding a few more choice words that made Ginny reprimand her.

She grabbed the bowl with the egg yolks and water in it, and dumped it on the book. It began to sizzle. The light changed from a blue-white to a dull yellow and orange.

"I can't believe it," Lily muttered. "The eggs are cooking…"

Ginny was completely unaware of her surroundings. She began pulling at her ears. "Do my ears look good in this light?" she asked as the flame changed to a bluish purple and began to diminish. It was running out of fuel—the cookbook was burning too quickly.

Lily stared at her.

"I was supposed to tell Hermione what color lights she should request for Laura's (A/N: Hermione and Ron's daughter) solo in her dance recital ages ago, as Laura inherited the Weasley skin tone, and your uncle Ron knows squat about this kind of stuff," Ginny explained.

Lily thwacked her, hard, on the back of the head. "Ow! Meanie!" Ginny whined.

Finally, as the sun heated up the earth enough to get rid of the fog, the kitchen was entirely fire-free. Lily and Ginny stared at each other for a moment. Lily pulled off her apron and wiped some soot off the counter.

Ginny pulled at her neck-string uncomfortably. She broke the silence. "I think my apron strings are too tight. It's probably why I'm choking."

Lily scoffed. "It just may have something to do with the fact that you're the SIZE OF A BEACHED WHALE!" Lily didn't take well to stress.

Ginny sniffed self-consciously. "Nice thing to say to a pregnant woman."

As the clock chimed ten-fifteen, Harry walked in the door. He leaned on the frame of the door leading to the kitchen, staring at his wife and daughter, at the soot-blacked stovetop, and back again.

"What'd I miss?" he asked incredulously. Ginny and Lily looked at his confused face for one moment, and began howling with laughter.

Lily staggered to the fridge and opened it, pulling out a box of cookies. "Sorry, but your scone breakfast didn't turn out very well. Happy birthday, though." She dropped the box of edible mini-men on the table.

"Happy birthday, Harry," Ginny said, still snickering every few seconds. She pecked him on the lips. "Do you want some gingerbread, instead?"

He shrugged. "Sure. Why not." He paused. "But only if you tell me how you managed to nearly burn the house down."

Ginny debated internally. Lily beat her to it, sticking out her hand. "Deal."

Harry grinned, grabbing it and shaking vigorously. "Deal."

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**Review. If you do, I'll point Energizer Bunny to your house next time it comes around.**


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